NEWS RELEASE

For Immediate Release: July 19, 2019
Information Contact: Karen Jarboe Singletary (208) 332-3570 ext. 3215 or Robert Kabel (208) 332-3570 ext. 3886

Over-The-Year Nonfarm Job Growth Remains Stable

Idaho’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate remained steady at 2.8 percent in June, the 19th consecutive month at or below 3 percent.

An additional 2,107 people made themselves available for work between May and June, pushing Idaho’s seasonally adjusted labor force up to 873,645. The number of unemployed increased by 71 to 24,662. Total employment grew by 2,036 to 848,983.

Idaho’s labor force participation rate – the percentage of people age 16 years or older working or looking for work – increased slightly to 63.9 percent.

Over the year, June’s statewide labor force was up 16,886 (2 percent), total employment was up 16,385 (2 percent) and there were 501 more unemployed persons. Seasonally-adjusted nonfarm jobs were up 2.3 percent from June 2018 representing a gain of 16,700 jobs. Four of Idaho’s industry sectors experienced job gains of three percent or greater: 5.9 percent in professional and business services (5,500 jobs), 3.5 percent in other services (900 jobs), 3.2 percent in manufacturing (2,200 jobs) and 3.1 percent in education and health services (3,300 jobs).

There were 28,711 online Idaho job openings in June compared with 30,008 a year ago, according to the Conference Board, a Washington, D.C., think tank. Of these postings, 5,601 were classified as hard-to-fill by department analysts, down from 7,213 a year ago. Hard-to-fill positions are continuously posted for 90 days or more. Health care jobs, including physicians, surgeons, psychiatrists, occupational and physical therapists and support positions, represent roughly 22 percent of all hard-to-fill online openings.

Idaho nonfarm jobs remained essentially unchanged from May to June, increasing by 200 for a monthly total of 754,900. Professional and business services (+0.3 percent), financial activities (+0.3 percent), leisure and hospitality (+0.3 percent), education and health services (+0.2 percent) and manufacturing (+0.1 percent) all showed monthly industry job gains. The natural resources sector saw no change to employment levels, meeting seasonal expectations, while employment levels in the remaining five industry sectors shed a combined total of 700 jobs.

Job growth for the Idaho Falls Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) was the fastest, up 0.3 percent or 200 jobs from May to June 2019. The Idaho Falls MSA also experienced the strongest seasonally adjusted over-the-year nonfarm growth in Idaho, adding 2,800 jobs (4.1 percent).

Annually, unemployment insurance benefit payments were up 10.2 percent from a weekly average of $1,006,400 a year ago to $1,109,300 weekly for June 2019. The number of claimants increased by 3.7 percent to 3,539 from a weekly average of 3,414 a year ago.

Nationally the unemployment rate was up 0.1 percent to 3.7 percent in June 2019, and total unemployed was up 87,000 from May for a total six million people looking for work. A year earlier, the national unemployment rate was 4 percent, and the number of unemployed was 6.5 million. [https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm]

Labor force data for Idaho’s counties and cities can be found at https://lmi.idaho.gov/laus.

For details on Idaho’s labor market, visit lmi.Idaho.gov.

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